Severe Weather Plunges County Into Darkness, Closes Roads

by Contributor | June 10, 2008 1:42 pm

[We’re gathering information as fast as we can. If you have information, drop it in the comments below. And if you’d like to send us a photo or short video of storm damage, drop us an e-mail[1].]

UPDATE 1:30 PM: Severe storms ripped through Oswego County at midday Tuesday. At this writing, nearly 21,000 county homes and businesses are without power, and at least two main highways are closed.

At this hour, the county remains under a tornado watch, meaning that the conditions exist for tornadoes to form, but there is no guarantee that they will.

According to National Grid (outage tracker here[2]), all but a few communities in the county were hit hard by the driving rain and strong winds. Nearly 3,000 homes and businesses in the city of Oswego lost power, as did 2,100 customers each in the towns of Sandy Creek and Scriba. Nearly every village, town and city in the county reported some level of power outage due to the storm.

National Grid officials say their crews are in the field and working to restore power. The utility projects most or all customers will have power back by 5:00 p.m.

The storm knocked down power lines and trees. Some of those downed lines and trees forced major roads to close:

• Interstate 81, both northbound and southbound, was closed as of 1:30 pm between the Sandy Creek and Pulaski exits because of downed power lines;
• NYS Route 104, the main east-west highway through the center of the county, was closed at Tollgate Rd. in the Town of New Haven because of downed trees and wires;
• NYS Route 3 was closed in both directions at the intersection with NYS Route 104B in the town of Mexico because of a downed tree.

One eyewitness told the Daily News that Route 481 was closed as of about 2pm in Oswego between Utica Street and Syracuse Avenue.
The storm and the threat of a tornado caused two county schools to change plans. Phoenix and Pulaski schools both cancelled afternoon pre-Kindergarten classes.

No injuries have been reported yet as a result of the severe storm.

[Add your storm story in the comments below, or send us a photo of the damage around your area in an e-mail[3]]

Source URL: https://oswegocountytoday.com/news/fulton/severe-weather-plunges-county-into-darkness-closes-roads/

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